REVIEW: Sushi Republic – Greensboro

Sushi Republic is one of many locally owned sushi restaurants in Greensboro. It is located between UNC-Greensboro and Greensboro College on Tate Street near most of the UNC-Greensboro eateries. I used to live about a block away from the restaurant on Mendenhall when I first moved to Greensboro which is pretty much UNC-Greensboro off campus housing. I was living with my brother, Will, who is a bit of a sushi nut so we would walk down to Sushi Republic occasionally to grab a few rolls.

My brother got married last weekend so we went out to grab a bite to eat together and relax before the wedding . Since Sushi Republic is one of my brother’s favorite restaurants in Greensboro, we went there. I love sushi but I don’t like spending a whole lot of money on it. This was an exception since it was the last time that the two of us were going to be able to sit down together over dinner before he got hitched.

The interior of Sushi Republic is very dark which I find appealing. It wasn’t dark like a restaurant where it is hard to read the menu. It is dark in all areas except for the sushi bar and the tabletops so that the food being prepared and on the table is in the spotlight. I don’t think this would be the place that you would go to lunch to read a book unless it was a nice day and you were sitting out on their great patio that overlooks Tate Street. The patio is a great place to people watch when school is in session.

I had jumped on Yelp while we were deciding what to order and I saw someone had mentioned that their sake mojitos were incredible so we both ordered one. It was a very easy drinking cocktail that could easily catch up with you after one or two. It tasted like a drink that you would get at a Sonic Drive-Thru or something and was very refreshing.

We ordered them after the appetizer so they came out with the meal even though the paragraph placement in this blog post might imply otherwise.\Next time, I will order it right when I get there so I can sip on it while I look through the menu. It is great drink for a hot day especially if you are sitting on the patio at Sushi Republic.

In a cocktail shaker, muddle the mint leaves with the sugar and lime pieces. Add ice and the sake and shake well. Strain into a highball glass filled with ice, top with the club soda and garnish with the mint sprig.

We started out with an appetizer of shrimp sumai which are steamed shrimp dumplings served with a gyoza sauce. The dumplings are a little smaller than ping pong balls and served on a bed of shredded cabbage with carrot ribbons on the side. The gyoza dipping sauce had a nice flavor to it with a spicy flavor profile that didn’t rely too much on the soy sauce for taste. There are a few other appetizers that I want to try at Sushi Republic but I would be hard pressed not to order these again next time.

My brother’s favorite roll at Sushi Republic ($9.75) is the Rolls Royce. It is a California roll topped with diced tuna, tomato & radish sprout and then covered in a sweet ponzu sauce which is a citrus-based sauce commonly used in Japanese cuisine (via Wikipedia). While researching ponzu sauce on the Interwebs, I noticed that it tends to look more like soy sauce or gyoza sauce. Sushi Republic’s ponzu sauce is more soup-like which I think is a better pairing to the sushi because it meant that the roll wasn’t sitting in a bath of sodium. The chunks of raw tuna and tomato turns the Rolls Royce from a simple roll into an entire meal.

I ordered the Sushi Republic roll ($8.95) and my brother ordered the Kamikaze roll ($9.95) which they placed on a plate together. I really enjoyed the presentation of these two rolls together. The Sushi Republic roll is tempura fried tuna, asparagus and grab with yamagobo sauce with a spicy aioli. The Kamikaze roll is spicy yellowtail tuna, avocado, cucumber, asparagus and crab that is tempura fried and then covered in eel sauce. We ended up trading pieces of each of the rolls so I got to try both of them. The Sushi Republic roll (yellow sauce) was my favorite of the two because it wasn’t so greasy. The tuna was the only thing tempura fried in the Sushi Republic roll and then rolled up versus the Kamikaze roll which was tempura fried whole after it was rolled together.

The slightly fuzzy picture above is the seafood yakisoba ($12.95) which is a stir-fried egg noodles with vegetables and mixed seafood laid on top of a banana leaf. I think it was a banana leaf but I am not well versed on my leaves. The mixed seafood consisted of shrimp and calamari rings. I was impressed with the shrimp. They were de-shelled all the way down to the base of the tail while leaving the tail on which allows you to eat every bit of meat on the shrimp. The calamari rings were a little chewy for my liking and would have preferred scallops instead. I love Asian noodles and, for a little more than the price of a higher end specialty roll, I can get my fill of sushi and noodles for right around twenty bucks. I gave my brother a good amount of the noodles and seafood and still had plenty left over for myself.

Sushi Republic is one of my favorite places to go in Greensboro for sushi. It is a little pricey but that is sushi in general. I don’t think you will be disappointed in the selection of sushi items or sashimi. If you are looking for sushi in Greensboro, Sushi Republic should be your first stop.

I am the founding blogger of Eat It, North Carolina. I started Eat It, North Carolina because I am always looking for awesome, local restaurants in different places around North Carolina but have never been able to find one place on the Internet that lists them.
I'm a recent graduate from East Carolina University & currently live in Greensboro. I like all types of food but am a sucker for Chinese and greasy spoons.